In 2009 Kusama commenced a series of paintings titled My Eternal Soul, vowing to create one hundred paintings over eighteen months. She finally completed the series in 2021, having painted close to nine hundred canvases. As in the Love Forever series, Kusama did not pre-plan each work’s composition. She started by painting each canvas in a bold hue, then added biomorphic imagery that recalls the organic forms in some of her earliest works on paper. Painting while seated at a table, she improvised, rotating each canvas to cover its surface with abstract, botanical and figurative forms.
Yayoi Kusama
Under the Sky of Happiness 2013
from the My Eternal Soul series 2009–2021
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
194.0 × 194.0 cm
Collection of the artist